Jewish Community Partners

The Memphis Jewish Federation invites the community to its 64th Annual Yom HaShoah Commemoration on Tuesday, April 14, 2026, at 6:00 p.m. to be held in the Marsi Moss Social Hall at Baron Hirsch Congregation.

This year’s commemoration will be emceed by Federation Holocaust Memorial Committee co-chairs Harry Diament and his daughter, Michelle Diament.

Federation is proud to welcome award-winning author and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors Judy Batalion as keynote speaker. Her visit to Memphis is graciously sponsored by the Tennessee Holocaust Commission. Batalion will speak on the theme Chain of Memory: Unfading Stories of Courage & Resilience.

Raised in Montreal speaking English, French, Yiddish, and Hebrew, Batalion studied the history of science at Harvard University before moving to London to pursue a Ph.D. in art history. While in London, she worked in a variety of creative roles — including curator, researcher, editor, lecturer, and performer — experiences she later transformed into essays and articles published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vogue, The Forward, and The Jerusalem Post, among other outlets.

Her reflections on family relationships and the generational transmission of trauma culminated in her first book, White Walls: A Memoir About Motherhood, Daughterhood, and Mess in Between.

In 2007, while conducting research at the British Library, Batalion discovered a dusty Yiddish volume titled Freuen in di Ghettos (“Women in the Ghettos”). The account of young Jewish women who hid revolvers in teddy bears, bribed Nazis with whiskey and pastries, and sabotaged German supply trains inspired her bestselling work, The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters. The book became a New York Times and international bestseller, won both a National Jewish Book Award and a Canadian Jewish Literary Award, was translated into 23 languages, adapted into a children’s edition, and optioned for film by Amblin Partners, founded by Steven Spielberg.

While researching The Light of Days, Batalion became fascinated by the cultural world that shaped these courageous young women. Her forthcoming novel, The Last Woman of Warsaw, explores friendship, love, and belonging in the artistically vibrant and politically charged Polish capital of the late 1930s. The novel will be released on April 7 and will be available for purchase at Novel.

Throughout the 2025–2026 school year, Federation has expanded its Holocaust education initiatives, including growing its statewide Art and Essay Contest to reach more schools across Tennessee. In partnership with Facing History & Ourselves and the Tennessee Holocaust Commission, Federation is also bringing more second- and third-generation Holocaust speakers into local schools.

For more information about the commemoration or Federation’s Holocaust awareness initiatives, contact Lorraine Wolf at lwolf@jcpmemphis.org.